6 new facts about Facebook

Facebook turns 10 tomorrow and reaches that milestone as the dominant social networking platform, used by 57% of all American adults and 73% of all those ages 12-17. Adult Facebook use is intensifying: 64% of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis, up from 51% of users who were daily users in 2010. Among teens, the total number of users remains high, according to Pew Research Center surveys, and they are not abandoning the site. But focus group interviews suggest that teens’ relationship with Facebook is complicated and may be evolving.

New Pew Research Center survey findings show how people are using Facebook and what they like and dislike about the site.

1Some users dislike certain aspects of Facebook, but fear of missing out on social activities (or “FOMO”) isn’t one of them.

Their dislikes start with oversharing by friends and people posting one’s personal information (such as photos) without first asking permission are among the most common. Parents are especially protective of images of their children, as 57% of Facebook users with children under the age of 18 say that people posting pictures of their children without asking permission first is something they strongly dislike about using Facebook.

On the other hand, the “fear of missing out” phenomenon resonates with only a small proportion of the Facebook population. Just 5% of Facebook users strongly dislike the fact that Facebook allows them to see others taking part in social activities that they themselves were not included in—and 84% of users say that this aspect of Facebook life doesn’t bother them at all.

2Women and men often have varying reasons for why they use Facebook – but everything starts with sharing and laughs.

Users say they especially appreciate photos and videos from friends (47% say that’s a major reason they use the site), the ability to share with many people at once (46% cite that as a major reason), updates from others (39% cite that), and humorous content (39%). Other aspects of Facebook—such as keeping up with news, or receiving support from the people in one’s network—appeal to a more modest audience of users. Men and women sometimes vary in their reasons for using the site.

3Half of all adult Facebook users have more than 200 friends in their network.Facebook users differ greatly when it comes to the number of friends in their networks:

39% of adult Facebook users have between 1 and 100 Facebook friends

23% have 101-250 friends

20% have 251-500 friends

15% have more than 500 friends

Among adult Facebook users, the average (mean) number of friends is 338, and the median (midpoint) number of friends is 200. In other words, half of all Facebook users have more than 200 friends, and half have less than 200.

Younger users tend to have significantly larger friend networks than older users: 27% of 18-29 year old Facebook users have more than 500 friends in their network, while 72% of users age 65+ have 100 friends or fewer.

412% of Facebook users say that someone has asked them to “unfriend” a person in their network.
Younger users are more likely to have experienced this than older users: 19% of 18-29 year old Facebook users have had someone ask them to remove a friend from their network (compared with 10% of 30-49 year olds, 7% of 50-64 year olds, and 5% of those 65 and older).

These “friend removal” requests tend to come primarily from other friends (35%), or from current (23%) or former (12%) spouses or romantic partners. Some 38% of those who received this type of request say that they were asked to remove a friend from their Facebook network, while 22% were asked to unfriend a former romantic partner.

5Facebook users “like” their friends’ content and comment on photos relatively frequently, but most don’t change their own status that often.
When asked about the frequency with which they engage in certain behaviors on the site, Facebook users tend to point towards “liking” content that others have posted and commenting on photos as the activities they engage in most often. On the other hand, most users change or update their own status only occasionally:

44% of Facebook users “like” content posted by their friends at least once a day, with 29% doing so several times per day.

31% comment on other people’s photos on a daily basis, with 15% doing so several times per day.

19% send private Facebook messages to their friends on a daily basis, with 10% sending these messages multiple times per day.

10% change or update their own status on Facebook on a daily basis, with 4% updating their status several times per day. Some 25% of Facebook users say that they never change or update their own Facebook status.

6Half of internet users who do not use Facebook themselves live with someone who does.
Many non-Facebook users still have some familiarity with the site through family members. Among internet users who do not use Facebook themselves, 52% say that someone else in their household has a Facebook account. In many instances, these may be parents who do not use Facebook but live with a child who does. Fully 66% of parents with a child living at home who do not use Facebook themselves say that someone in their household has a Facebook account.

In addition, some 24% of Facebook non-adopters who live with an account holder say that they look at photos or posts on that person’s account.

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Aaron Smith is a senior researcher focusing on the internet and technology at Pew Research Center.

89 Comments

This is really interesting! I’m surprised the median number of friends is only 200 – I have between 730 and 740 friends last I checked, and many of them have over 1,000. I’m 22 and people in my age group tend to add everyone they’ve ever met and even friends of friends they’ve never met in real life, so I thought the median would be a lot higher!

I do enjoy the way you have presented this paucrtilar difficulty plus it really does offer me personally some fodder for consideration. On the other hand, from what I have seen, I just simply hope as the actual opinions pack on that individuals continue to be on point and don’t embark on a soap box associated with some other news of the day. Still, thank you for this exceptional point and although I do not necessarily agree with the idea in totality, I regard the perspective.

recently someone intruded on my facebook account and downloaded images of me and my family without my permission . these were then photocopied and distrubted without my permission. the also downloaded personal posts and did the same with them .these people are not friends or in fact facebook account holders . is this legal .

I hope someone answered you. You must have your privacy setting set to “Public,” otherwise, if they weren’t on your Friend list, they would not have been able to access your page or your photos. If they are on your Friend list, they are no friend to you and have the ethics of a snake. Too many folks accept anyone at work as a Friend. If you feel worried about excluding co-workers, then have a separate page for just them. Many folks have one for friends and a separate one for family, so their family doesn’t get into their “business.” Many families have too much drama. You just use separate privacy settings for each.

Something that this study failed to mention is how many people actually look at their News Feed regularly. I suspect that the number is very low. I know a great many people (mostly teens and 20s) that read and reply to private messages on their mobile, but don’t even realize that they’re using Facebook; to them, it’s no different than texting. Those people rarely, if ever, visit their News Feed, but are still considered active users.

I have roughly 800 local friends (I’m well known in my area), and one day I ran a test. I made a post asking everyone that sees the post to please like the post. Out of the 800 friends, the post had 166 likes; roughly 20%. This is the same reach that my business page was getting (before they started limiting the reach), leading me to think that only about 20% of the users visit their News Feed regularly.

Facebook is falling to the pressure of Wall Street. Mark obviously doesn’t need the money, but investors are demanding higher returns, thus he’s turning it into a running billboard. Like many, he’s forgotten what the original concept was. In the end, this too shall fade into the sunlight.

Buddy, once u participate In front of your computer with FB. All of the sudden u have 100 Friends and growing. I read a post from a different sm site. A small boy was sad because he had 160 friends. But he really only knew five. Sad! Lots of concerns still need to be addressed. I told his post to move away from the computer. Psychological problems, depression, bullying, stalking.
One good thing. People on social media are forgiving. Yes, they can become your friend.
I’m 53 I really don’t care to text a teenager. So you figure it out. Good luck and god bless

thanks for your analytics on Facebook. Another trend on facebook we see on entrepreneurial-insights.com is that fans from emerging countries (such as India, Thailand) love basic content on entrepreneurship while fans from developed countries (such as the US, UK) are more engaged with highly specialized content.

What is your point on that. Did you see a similar pattern?
Cheers,
Martin

Lulia–these questions come from a much larger study that we are currently in the process of analyzing and writing up. Once we’ve published the larger reports, we’ll make the data available (including the Facebook-specific questions). You can get automated alerts when we post new data by signing up for our newsletter at pewinternet.org.

Hi Aaron! I was wondering if there were any individual differences in terms of age in the sample, with regards to the fact that “10% change or update their own status on Facebook on a daily basis, with 4% updating their status several times per day. Some 25% of Facebook users say that they never change or update their own Facebook status.”, especially the last statistic.

Great info… Wondering tho if there has been any research done on the differences of male and female liking preferences… I have noticed that there is a much smaller amt of males that like posts compared to women…and was wondering if there were any statistics on it

In response to why people don’t update their own statuses as often as they like the statuses of their friends, I think it’s obvious. Our Facebook profile is so connected with our personal brand today that we only want to create posts that will shine positively on our personal brand. For more, please see my full response to this article.

Hi I use facebook daily as it keeps me in contact with family and friends. I am daily updated with what is happening and any events that I have been invited to or is told about. So congratulations on reaching 10yrs old wow. Keep updating information.

I tried facebook, didn’t like it and moved on. Now every where I go I am bombarded with their intrusion into my face. Other sites I visit have now sold out and adopted the facebook social plug in and now require a link to my (non existent) facebook account to continue using theirs. Where is my freedom to choose??

I’ve had to report someone for sharing public pictures of my young son. I’d asked the person to take them down or at least make them friends-only, but the person refused to do so and didn’t stop until reports were made on two different occasions. I don’t want pictures of my son publicly available where any predator can easily get ahold of them!!

I’m a caretaker for two small children as well as a part time photographer. I think it’s absolutely vital to ask for parent’s permission before putting images of minors up for public display. There are a lot of people who steal photos, or use the information to stalk people. Safety for the kids should be the number one priority. The few times I have put photos on the internet, I had the settings so that only people who knew the family personally were able to see. If you need to share pictures of children, I recommend adjusting the settings so that just the people you trust will see them.

One thing that irked me as an ex-FB user is all the sites that require you to sign in with your FB account before you can comment…ex- or non-FB foks are simply cut out of the conversation. And they say it’s to keep the conversation more “civil”.

Unfortunately there was no data shown in this study on those of us that have opted OUT. For me, mostly because of the constant trivial posts. I was attempting to use FB as a means to generate discussions about “serious” political issues. It worked with a few hundred FB friends but tapered off in the deluge of “activity” posts about everything but people going to the restroom. FB posts have degenerated to the same level that many people feel a need to constantly text. Remember hand written memos done in duplicate that accomplished much communication & work?

I love fb and all my fb friends. I have interesting friends, a must to enjoy this social media. And, yes, my wall is all about me, no one else, unless I have an extreme opinion or concern about something, or someone-it’s all about me. Call it self-glorification, if you wish, bottom line, it is all about me!
I have also met one of my very best friends on fb, and now we even Skype! I have wonderful discussions with others on a variety of subjects. It’s a real conversation, just as good as face to face. And the conversation can go on for days, without cutting into your busy life.
As for the complaints of your pictures going public, don’t post you pictures, don’t share your life. Fb is like my own, personal front page. I don’t post anything I don’t want the world to see or read!
I love FaceBook!

I appreciate the information because I am not alone in disliking Facebook and opting out 6 months ago. It felt wrong to make so much information about me public and I found that learning so much about others was a “downer”. I am much more content and life is so much simpler not having to maintain my FB page and now I have a good excuse when friends ask “where are you”. They do understand and a couple are doing likewise.

I dislike the practice of sharing non original photos. For myself, genuine personal or family or actual friend photos are more authentic and serves MY purpose, without cluttering up my home view. The accumulation of irrelevant mass shared photos, trite sayings absent any useful news or content. But, as you might imagine I’m 65+ and then some!

I do have an above average accumulation of photos, dear especially to those from our large family as well as some, I think, quality photos from our travels which seemed to have been well received. For what it’s worth, with close to 100 friends/family I’m considering eliminating a few for the above (friends but not family) or simply non use. Trying not to be too grouchy! Just an alternate view.

Facebook’s Janus-faced attitudes repulse me: The service took down the wonderful photo of one woman’s personal victory of losing more than a hundred pounds, saying her picture “glorified an idealized body type.”

Yet, before and since, their right-hand column shows male visitors constant photos of very busty ladies looking for companions.

Apparently one must pay Facebook to show an idealized body type. No pay, and their “principles” suddenly kick in.

With identity theft being such a concern nowadays, why would I share my personal background info with total strangers who might want to make illegal use of it? I see absolutely no benefit or advantage for a senior citizen to partipate. Ask me again in my next life; I may change my mind by then.

My principal problem with Facebook is that it seems so shallow. Most of what I see and learn from other people is really not that interesting or is really mostly oriented to self glorification. I suspect, that though I have declared I would drop it, I find it more trouble to drop out than not. Also, I did have a couple of followers object to my quitting so I still look at it on occasion.

The thing I dislike most about Facebook is my picture winding up in unusual places
This should be private and under my sole control. I’m often tempted to drop out, but it
is the primary way some of my children communicate.

This data is very interesting, and I confirms many of the reasons why I discontinued the use of FACEBOOK and GOOGLE+
One day when there were more than 50 people who wanted to be my friend and I didn’t know any of them, I opted out of FACEBOOK. I am sure they are very nice people, but I like live people in my life. What I do is of no consequence to anyone except the people I’ve named in my will. The rest are strangers.
I wish everyone well, and I will continue not having to worry if I will be “unfriended” or have to unfriend someone, or if a prospective employer wants FACEBOOK passwords.. etc. I can happily say: “I’m a FACEBOOK FREE ZONE”
I hope others continue with their fun.. I’m O.K. with my new status quo.

“Facebook turns 10 tomorrow and reaches that milestone as the dominant social networking platform, used by 57% of all adults and 73% of all those ages 12-17.”

57% of all adults? In the World? In America? In a study of that contained 1,801 participants?

I would consider the article to be slightly misleading for someone who does not understand how research is conducted and performed. Yes the study is hyperlinked after the first paragraph, but a clear explanation of the data is needed for someone that has zero experience reading research.

Not a huge shock if you’re aware of the Catfish phenomenon. Users manage multiple accounts in order to deceive others, especially when it comes to their indentity and its applicability to an online-only relationship with someone else.

I most dislike changes that compromise my privacy by Facebook as well as ads and events being posted on my home page by Facebook and all those urgings to connect to more people being foisted on me by Facebook. It’s a worthwhile service, but their never ending attempts to exploit me is very annoying.

Theres a great tool that can help you with things like that, it really does make facebook far less annoying by hiding those kind of interface elements that pester you to do stuff you dont want to do. Its called FB Purity, and you can get it free here : fbpurity.com
Once installed you will wonder how you managed to use the site before it.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.